Chapter 1
One month later
It was a beautiful morning when I was called off of the extra board to take a troop train from Pittsburgh to Norfolk. Dragging myself out of bed, I looked in the mirror and thought to myself
"Randy, you are the luckiest man alive. Not only do you work for the Pennsy, you get to be in command of one of the most powerful machines in the world."
I got dressed, grabbed a thermos of coffee, and set out for the station where I would be taking over the train.
As the locomotive, a freshly shopped K4 4-6-2 Pacific, eased into the station, I heard a slight clanking sound. To an untrained ear, it would be lost in the sounds of hissing steam, beating air pumps, and screeching flanges. As the engineer swung down from the cab, I asked how the locomotive was performing.
The old man replied "She's not doing bad, but that main rod is was giving us trouble. If I were you, I'd take up the wedges* on the right main rod and watch out for that reverse lever. This morning, leaving Harrisburg, the damn thing jumped the cog out of quadrant and the bar banged into the forward corner. "Good thing we weren't going fast," he added, "might have done some damage."
"Will do, and thanks for the warning. I'll keep an eye on it," I replied.
While I was waiting for the scheduled departure time, I swung my grip into the cab. Grabbing a wrench and the long spouted oil can, I proceeded to "oil around" hitting each bearing with a squirt of oil, using the spout to get into the hard to reach places. It was difficult work, but it was necessary. If a bearing were to seize at speed, even for a millisecond, the results would be catastrophic. After that was done, I took the wrench out of my pocket and tightened up the main rod.
That done, I walked back to the platform. I noticed a young man, just out of high school by the look of him, looking at the locomotive with something close to reverence and awe. I could understand what he was thinking, for I was once like him. I could tell that the rails called to him like they did to me. There was a certain romance to them. The rushing of the wind, the hissing of steam, the rhythmic beat of the wheels, and the lonesome wailing of the steam whistle. Addressing him, I asked "How would you like to ride with us for the first leg of the trip?"
His face lit up. "Would I ever!" he cried.
After I had scaled the side of the engine, he eagerly clambered into the cab.
Author's Note:
This will probably be the only time that I will have 2 chapters in 1 day.
Oil around: to take the long spouted oil can and oil all the joints of the locomotive.
Grip: a bag containing the paperwork, tools, schedules, etc, that an engineer needs when he is on the road.
On the road: traveling on the main line. Also known as the "High Iron"
*Four large screws on the main rod providing a wedge-type adjustment for taking up slack in the brass bearings